The boys scream cut short nearly as soon as it cut through the silence, small mottled hands stifling back his cries.

No, nonononono-Cora-san! You can't, please no you can't leave me too...

There had been so much blood, leaking into the snow, turning it red, and that was before, before Doflamingo had- no, can't think about that, can't think about that or all reason will be lost and Cora-sans sacrifice will have been for nothing he scolded himself as he stumbled and fell into the snow, the cold doing little too shock hm out of his stupor. Cold... one of the early sympoms of exsaunguation, followed by unconsciousness, then death.

Wait... unconsciousness, then death! Shooting upright Law gasped for breath as he stared blankly into the frozen wasteland surrounding him, thoughts a panicked whirlwind.

Cora-san could still be alive! Stumbling to his feet he looked around in vauge desperation, he could probably get back to him, Doflamino would have left the island by now, but even so, what could he possibly do? With the exeption of his new devil fruit he had nothing in the way of tools or supplies, and he had no idea how to use the thing anyways, so he might as well not even have that.

Suddenly, he was broken from his musings as he noticed movement in the distance, squinting slightly in an effort to clearly make out the figure he sucked in a sharp breath as it came into focus, a marine he thought with a grimace, making to hide from the figure when a thought struck him still, Cora-san is one too, he glanced back Vergo was working for him, but surely it would be ridiculous for there to be more than one spy, wouldn't it?

Would I ever be able to forgive myself if I passed up a chance to save him?

"Hey! Help!" he screamed, taking off at run towards the marine who turned to face him as he approached, a woman, eh? That wasn't very common, was it?

"You gotta help him!" he exclaimed as he came to a sudden stop a short distance from her, just enough to prevent her from being ably to clearly see his skin, recognize the disease in his skin.

"What?! Help who? What are you even doing here kid?!" she asked approaching

"The man! That one in the pink coat shot him! I think he"s dying!" he spoke quickly, brushing aside the qustions and turning slightly away from her in to point back towards the direction where Cora-san lay.

"What?!" She exclaimed, hand going to pull out a den den from a pouch at her waist,

"Hurry! This way!" He shouted not giving a chance for questions he didn't want to answer, turning and running in the direction of his savior, the marine woman hot on his heels, shouting directions and requests for medical aid into the snail as she did so.

Thank every spirit of the sea, this one might actually help!

o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

His scream was caught back in his throat for the second time that day, this time due to lack of breath once Corazon came into view.

There's so much blood, was there really any chance of him still being alive? Desperately he scrambled forwards, checking for a pulse, dimmly aware of the marine swearing softly behind him, please, he's all I have left..

There! slow, yet steady beneath his fingers, for a moment it was all he his world consisted of, that assurance that he wasn't alone (again), that the only person in the world that loved him wasn't gone, was still there. Slowly, he became aware of the marine who had settled on the oposite side of the large man from him.

"Hey, mister can you hear me? Mister? Hey kid, you know his name?" She asked, hands occupied with checking injuries, no longer solely focused on him, good, Cora-san took precidence and as long as she wasn't looking at him she was less likely to notice anything about him.

Frozen for a moment at being addressed, he quickly found his voice again

"Um, I think he said Rosi-something, and something about being a marine? ...I think that was why the pink man shot him..."

"Rosinante?!" came a new voice from the den-den, which was sitting beside Corazon's shoulder, forgotten until that moment.

"You know him Tsuru-san?" asked the stunned marine, Law caught himself sympathizing.

"Know him? I watched that boy grow up! He's Sengoku's boy!'" Law could only watch as instructions where shouted over the den den, listening with a vauge sense of shell shock. Sengoku's boy... it had been clear listening to the two speak to each other that there had been real affection in their relationship, it was clrear that Corazon (Rosinante?) would be well cared for with these people, clear that they cared about him. After all, he is one of them.

He shifted, uncomfortable with the thoughts running through his head. It all made sense, he had known that the brothers had been separated for fourteen years, had only been reunited one year before he had joined the family, knew that the blond was now twenty-six, meaning that he and Doflamingo had parted ways when he would have been eight years old. He couldn't remember a single occasion when they had spoken of their parents, or any other family for that matter.

Taking that together with what he had learned just that day, it made sense... he could see it, a happy childhood for the older man, under the close watch of some of the marine's higher ranking. A found family with a second father, just like he had become for Law. A family he had been willing to cut himself off from, as a consequence of simply helping Law, a family that would clearly miss him, if the agitated tones coming from the den-den were any indication.

"Hey kid, you okay?" He looked up to find that he was once again the subject of the woman's focus, his paranoia reminding him that it was most likely only a matter of time before she noticed the discoleration of his skin... only a matter of time before his window of escape was closed completly. He let his eyes fall to the ground, to the man that had become his caretaker, who had sacrificed so much for him, before coming to a decision, steeling his nerves as he looked the woman into eye.

"I, um... I have'ta pee" he muttered, shifting some more to make his embarrassed kid act as convincing as possible while starting to edge backwards.

"Oh! uh.." the woman was now glancing around awkwardly, like if she looked hard enough a restroom would magically appear among the snow drifts.

"I'll be right back! No peaking!" he shouted abruptly, before darting behind a tall snow drift ignoring the response that of coarse she wouldn't peak. Waiting until he was out of sight, then circling around and taking off at a dead run in the direction of the secluded area where the two had left their small boat earlier that day, had it really only been one day?

"Ah, hah..." he found himself choking back his cries again, this time with out the aid of his caretakers devil fruit to give him safety, needing to get as far as possible before the marine realized anything, hopefully she would be preoccupied with taking care of Corazon. Tears blurred his sight before he roughly brushed them away, pushing himself to run faster.

I'm sorry Cora-san, but I love you too, so...

I'm letting you go.